Player Features and Ideas Discussion

They'd be crazy to follow us.

Being a miner it's rather dangerous to actually be in the asteroid field among the rocks, given that should any gankers show up (or extra tough rats), you may have a difficult time getting out. Meanwhile the rats/gankers have 100% free and clear shots with no obstructions (not even the largest asteroids) to hitting you.

So, a smart miner stays well free and clear of the rocks they are mining, for ease of exit should it be needed.

And you don't get to enjoy the very cool effect of being in among the rocks (especially now with the update).

I think it ought to actually be of benefit to be in among the asteroids. Now granted it's probably a programming nightmare to make all the rocks be actual obstructions to gun fire. However, it ought to be significantly more difficult for rats (or gankers) to hit you if you are in among the asteroids. And of course difficult for you to hit back (if you are equipped to do so).

However any combat drones will leave the asteroid field to fight off attackers. And so they would actually become a threat to attackers who are getting hit by them, while meanwhile they are having great difficultly hitting you!

This makes more sense now too given there are all these little rocks around now. All these little rocks would deflect and absorb many shots on you, however they would not be an obstruction to getting up to warp speed as you just bump them out of the way. (Only the big rocks obstruct your path).

Perhaps there is a way to program this so that the deeper you are among the rocks, the greater the cover. And perhaps as asteroids are eliminated the amount of cover decreases.

Now.... let the griefer and ganker protests and wailing begin.

Sure you can come in to the asteroid field as well, and maybe that would marginally increase your chance to hit, but it would still be more difficult. Perhaps based on some formula that considers the distance between the shooter and the mark and how many obstructions there would tend to be in that space.

This wouldn't be a collision check with any of the actual objects (asteroids and now the small debris).

It'd be a general modifier based on a) Where in the asteroid belt you are and where the attackers are, b) How many of the larger mineable asteroids are left, and c) The distance between the engaged ships.

So you would need to program a zone, say a long narrow box (tube) that wraps around the asteroid belt, and the further you are from the edges inside of that box the more protected you are, also the further length wise the attackers are shooting from the more protected you are.

So even for ships fairly close inside the belt, the to-hit chance is going to be a fair amount lower. However in some scenarios where they are shooting through a lot of asteroid debris, the to-hit chance is going to be markedly lower.

So. While there is still some danger to miners of getting caught up on a rock and not being able to quickly warp out, they will actually be more protected if they are in amongst the asteroids.

In High-Security space this could significantly add to the time it takes to destroy a mining vessel before CONCORD arrives.

I think I'll leave that for CCP to decide. Afterall they know how their game is programmed and what is or isn't feasible and what could or couldn't be done.



It wouldn't matter. Just being inside the belt is going to reduce the ability to hit the other ship. The further away the better yes, but the idea is that being inside the belt offers some protection regardless. You're more likely to escape or survive, and in cases where they haven't been able to manage to jump in right on top of you, you're even MORE likely to escape.

It makes sense, it gives miners (good guys) not only a reason to enter the beauty of the belt's interior, but also an additional chance over gankers and rats (the bad guys). And what is wrong with that?

The rest of us know how their game is programmed too - it's called Stackless Python. Using it brought performance improvements, but has brought them problems too.

This would be awesome if it were a collision check, server load aside, but making it a static effect of being "in" the belt is silly IMO. If there were a way to code collision checks for guns without crashing the server in a 4-man fight, I think we would all come to love it. Fleet battles would get very interesting if you had a chance of hitting your own tight orbiting tackle if it was in just the right piece of space, or if objects did anything besides make bounce hazards. With that being said, I personally can't think of anyway to do this that wouldn't be a massive resource hog. A collision check would enhance the "strategery" behind fighting, so it would be cool, but I don't want to give up smooth gameplay to get it. Maybe in the future...

As for the OP -1, if you don't want to get hit, don't be there long enough to get hit. As for protection, it doesn't matter if you're taking 10% less damage if you're pointed, it will just take a little more damage to kill you. And if you're aligned out, like you should be, then either a) you get away or b) you wake up in station cursing CODE.

Well you could certainly go into a bit more complexity for types of munitions, distance from say a missile explosion etc... They could get much crazier with the calculations if they wanted.

However, I was thinking a simple modifier to being able to hit the target regardless of anything but the three criteria I mentioned. Distance you are in the belt, how close the attacker is, and how many mineable asteroids are remaining.

Really?

Missiles never fail to hit their mark? It's 100% guaranteed?

Yes. Provided they reach their target in time.

Ummmm rather than going through all this, why not just have asteroid belts dramatically reduce the sig of ships inside. This would not only reduce the damage/chance to hit against a ship but also make the ship take longer to lock and scan down.

Thats if you like this idea in the first place.

Hmm.

Gameplay and features that help the game?

Lore and RP that would seem realistic in a submarine... space game like physics.